The Hellenistic Western Mediterranean: a neglected topic in academia

[Cyclops]

I think there should be an entire periplous on this subject

I think there's a(na)basis for your statement to be taken seriously.

[conon394]

I was basically saying that no geographer before Strabo covered the Western Med as extensively as he before his time

Not geography per say, but Theophrastus in 'On Stones' covers east to west, north to south (Italy, Spain, and out to India and Africa etc.). On balance given the Peripatetic school pre dates the Hellenistic era proper I think it fair to say at Athens at least Greek scholarship was not just Aegian biased (at least in sciences).

[bigdaddy1204]

What is the yellow area in the south of Spain? And why is there a blue patch in Egypt?

[Kyriakos]

What is the yellow area in the south of Spain? And why is there a blue patch in Egypt?

Blue in Egypt is Naucratis, a city co-founded by tens of different greek city-states, to organize greek-egyptian trade there. Leased or given by Egypt voluntarily.

Yellow is Tartesos? Don't know about that.

[Ἀπολλόδοτος Α΄ ὁ Σωτήρ]

Yellow is Tartesos? Don't know about that.

A local culture that collapsed prior to carthaginian hegemony in southern Iberia, Tartessians maintained trade with both nearby phoenician colonists and greek traders from afar.

[Kyriakos]

I know of the most general info, yes, but nothing more

[Roma_Victrix]

A local culture that collapsed prior to carthaginian hegemony in southern Iberia, Tartessians maintained trade with both nearby phoenician colonists and greek traders from afar.

Thanks! I was unaware of the Tartessians, a symptom perhaps of my general ignorance about the western half of the Hellenistic world. A fault that I readily blame academia for!

[Ἀπολλόδοτος Α΄ ὁ Σωτήρ]

A fault that I readily blame academia for!

I've encountered a lot of good literature published only in Spanish... It's going to take some time for many publications to be translated into English...

[Roma_Victrix]

I've encountered a lot of good literature published only in Spanish... It's going to take some time for many publications to be translated into English...

Sorry to necro this thread, but I'd like to see if you know any good translations by now, years later. I found an excellent article by Adolfo J. Dominguez from 2013 (described below), which summarizes the research and archaeological findings of many works stretching back to the 1990s about the influence of Emporion on native Iberian towns in the immediate hinterland in what is now Catalonia in Spain. This was a post that I made in jest to another about Emporion not being important enough or not having enough of a Greek presence to warrant a "minor Hellenistic polis" for the campaign map in the M2TW mod EBII:

Which source(s) are you basing this assumption on? I mean yes, Emporion was not as physically big as Massalia and nowhere near as powerful economically, but it was the largest Greek settlement between Massalia and the important Iberian cities like Tartessos in the south, or Phoenician/Carthaginian Gader.

At the very least Emporion had a huge impact on the neighboring native Iberian city of Indika, and more than that, their minted coinage was used by neighboring Iberians who used it as a model for their own. Greek ceramics were common grave goods in Iberian necropolis tombs, and had a major influence on native Iberian artworks (native Indiketai pottery is literally based on Ionian and then Attic Greek models). If not the Phoenician alphabet, the Greek alphabet appears to be a model used for various northern Iberian writing scripts. Even the Roman historian Livy says that native Iberians from the hinterland and elsewhere traveled long distances to trade agricultural goods for Greek goods that arrived at Emporion by sea, which undoubtedly led to the swelling the native population there. The city's established constitution included a mixture of Greek and Iberian laws.

The city of Emporion was not just a "trading post" as its name eludes, it was a city with a proper agora and acropolis, with temples like those to Artemis, Asclepius, and Zeus-Serapis. It also had various peristyle homes where wealthy Hellenistic Greeks decorated their floors with the latest designs in mosaics, before the Romans built anything similar there. It has a cemetery where at least two thirds of the inhabitants of the city practiced Greek-style burials and roughly a third were native Iberian! That alone confirms that there were plenty of Greeks living there.
Emporion was a "trading post" that became a proper polis: "GREEKS AND NON-GREEKS IN THE CITY OF EMPORION
AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THEIR DIFFERENT IDENTITIES", by Adolfo J. Domínguez, ELECTRUM, Vol. 20 (2013): 23–36.
Specifically, it grew large in size and became a proper polis after refugees from Phocaea escaped the capture of their mother polis in Anatolia by the Achaemenid Persians.
As the paper acknowledges, 20 km away from Emporion at sites like Mas Castellar at Pontós there is clear evidence that legal contracts were made with Emporion to build underground grain silos and to store cereal crops there, and ultimately the wall of the city was demolished under the influence of Emporion. If that doesn't wreck and negate your conclusion about Emporion's influence on its hinterland, then my name is Elvis Presley.

Moreover, all of those native Iberian towns on the plain around Emporion that stored its grain per legal contract also had the aforementioned Indiketai pottery and imported Attic Greek ceramics found at those sites. This indicates a wide regional expanse of economic control, commercial distribution, and cultural influence. ...You can start calling me Elvis anytime now, you know, or Roma_Victrix.

Emporion also became one of the most significant allies of Rome in the Iberian peninsula during the Second Punic War. Publius Cornelius Scipio had his brother Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus land there with Roman troops to begin the conquest of Carthage's holdings in Iberia. The site was commercially important enough as a crossroads that the Romans began building their own larger town outside the existing Neapolis, called Emporiae, in 195 BC.

I think it's awesome that we know this much about Emporion's influence over neighboring towns, and it's interesting to think about how much Greek material goods like pottery impacted the native Iberians. They seem to have had a real taste for Attic wares from Greece.

To be honest I didn't even know there were Greek colonies in the Western Mediterranean other than Magna Graecia and Massalia, until just now. I suppose the primary reason that the Hellenistic Western Med is neglected is because you're looking for the wrong books. There were Greek colonies and no doubt they had a lot of influence on their surrounding areas, but Magna Graecia aside they really don't seem to have accomplished anything very interesting, they were just hangovers from an earlier period and they were pretty much wiped out by the Romans as part of the Punic Wars. Books on the Etruscans, Romans and Carthaginians in this period are not difficult to find. One must question what one would actually write about in a book about the Hellenistic Western Med - Greek influence on the Romans is pretty done to death, and on the Carthaginians and Etruscans is not unstudied (bearing in mind our dearth of sources especially for the latter). And as for Greek influence on the Iberians and Gauls, we have no real sources on these beyond archaeology as far as I am aware.

I know that I addressed this post in the past already, but now I want to tear it to shreds and rip it a new...fun hole...for saying this.
Now that I am armed with the right knowledge and filled with vim and vigor.
[Roma_Victrix cracks knuckles, inhales with a deep breath...]

You have some serious nerve saying nobody of distinction came from Western poleis, when Pytheas of Massalia is mentioned right in the OP, one of the greatest Greek explorers of all time, and he came from Massalia in Gaul, sailing all the way up to the British Isles from the Atlantic and maybe even Iceland given his descriptions about Northern Lights. For that matter, the Greek city-state of Syracuse in Sicily had a series of remarkable leaders who fought the Carthaginians AND even invaded their heartland in ancient Tunisia. Archimedes was one of the greatest mathematicians and engineers who ever lived and he came from Syracuse, a city-state that also produced some of the earliest artillery of the ancient world.

Also no, the Romans did not "wipe out" the colonial Greek cities of the Western Mediterranean during the Punic Wars, even with the sack of Syracuse. Emporion was the allied staging point for Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus land with troops and spearhead the Roman conquest of Carthaginian holdings in Spain. Massalia actively hosted Roman forces to stop the Carthaginian advance when Hannibal famously crossed the Rhone and then the Alps. The Roman Republic remained allies of both Emporion and Massalia all the way up until the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great. That is when those cities finally lost their autonomy. So you got that point miserably wrong.

Also, we have a lot more than just archaeology for telling us how the Greeks interacted with Iberians and Gauls. As related above in my quote in the EBII subforum, even well known mainstream ancient Roman historians like Livy commented on how Emporion traded and interacted with the native Iberians (his writings only confirmed by archaeology), let alone writers like Strabo. I'm glad to correct the record after all these years, feels great. Get rekt.

[NorthernXY]

It's my theory that the Iberians tried to copy the Greek xiphos in iron, but making the leaf-like blade is a lot harder with iron (heard it from blacksmiths) so they just made it straight and that eventually gave us the gladius. The Iberians already copied the kopis with the falcata, which was heavily popular during and after Alexander's death, because Alexander used one.

[Roma_Victrix]

It's my theory that the Iberians tried to copy the Greek xiphos in iron, but making the leaf-like blade is a lot harder with iron (heard it from blacksmiths) so they just made it straight and that eventually gave us the gladius. The Iberians already copied the kopis with the falcata, which was heavily popular during and after Alexander's death, because Alexander used one.

Yeah, the cross cultural exchange across the Mediterranean, especially in the realm of military equipment, is often overlooked in the popular imagination until perhaps the very late Roman Republic (and let's face it, the general public doesn't know much about ancient history in general). Another fan of the Iberian falcata was Hannibal Barca, who equipped various units of his Carthaginian armies with that sword. For that matter, the Romans weren't the only ones to adopt lorica hamata chain mail armor from the Celts; the Hellenistic Greek states of the Eastern Mediterranean did the same before being conquered by the Romans. Influenced by the migrating Galatians, the Greeks, Thracians, and Illyrians also adopted the Thureos style oval shield of the Celts, which was more widely used than chain mail (the Roman use of the latter was far more systematic and widespread). Alexander the Great's armies spread the use of Greek weapons and armaments all the way to Afghanistan.

[NorthernXY]

Damn, two lost posts in a row. The kopis also went to Indian where it is called the khukri/kukri. If one looks close they can see Hellenic influence in Western Indian artwork and in Buddhism.

My other talking point that got deleted was that the Sea Peoples were mercenaries from all over the Mediterranean. Once Troy was sacked in 1,200 BC, the same time the mercenaries hoped in the boats that they sailed on and became the Sea Peoples. When they sacked Cyprus, it screwed up the entire monetary system and trade in the Eastern Mediterranean. A terrible Earthquake and I think a drought made things worse. This explains why there are so many "cultures" in the Egyptian record books at the time about where the Sea Peoples came from.

It was Xenophon who was one of the first to suggest the kopis, especially on horseback, be used by the Hellenes.

[sumskilz]

My other talking point that got deleted was that the Sea Peoples were mercenaries from all over the Mediterranean. Once Troy was sacked in 1,200 BC, the same time the mercenaries hoped in the boats that they sailed on and became the Sea Peoples. When they sacked Cyprus, it screwed up the entire monetary system and trade in the Eastern Mediterranean. A terrible Earthquake and I think a drought made things worse. This explains why there are so many "cultures" in the Egyptian record books at the time about where the Sea Peoples came from.

Pirates, mercenaries, displaced groups, and/or whatever, but they weren’t a coherent group or a long-term coalition. It’s likely that pretty much everything you’ve read about them is much more tentative and speculative than you’ve been led to believe.

[conon394]

It was Xenophon who was one of the first to suggest the kopis, especially on horseback, be used by the Hellenes.

He was the first to write a self help book that survives to make such a suggestion. But he is predated by images and other archeological evidence.

[NorthernXY]

Pirates, mercenaries, displaced groups, and/or whatever, but they weren’t a coherent group or a long-term coalition. It’s likely that pretty much everything you’ve read about them is much more tentative and speculative than you’ve been led to believe.

I'll try to read the post, but I wasn't under the assumption they were a coherent group. I just assumed that if the battle of Troy was real and happened around the time history says it did and the Sea Peoples showed up around the same time, there is probably a connection. Before I make too big of an ass of myself, I've read that they came as far away as Sardinia, or what the Egyptians called them.

[VINC.XXIII]

There is Marseille Grecque (Monique Clavel-Lévêque) specifically on Marseille, in french, and Michael Dietler written about it too in Archeology of Colonialism, that is in english.

A lot of material is unpublished in actual books you can buy so it needs to read local stuff, for instance Antibes/Nice.

D’un monde à l’autre - Les colonies massaliètes de Gaule méridionale : sources et modèles d’un urbanisme militaire aux IVe-IIIe s. av. J.-C. - Publications du Centre Jean Bérard (openedition.org)


Roquepertuse et la polychromie en Gaule méridionale à l'époque préromaine - Persée (persee.fr)

Second is on sitting Gauls statues.

[Sinuhet]

In my opinion, it is a modern history’s mistake to see the Ancient western mediterrian territory as a “cultural” area isolated by “barbarians” with some sporadic contact.

It was an Europe very similar to the High medieval period - interconnected in a sense, that e.g. central European military power shaped Italian minor states, which were more developed. The Roman republic’s expansion was a product of the Celtic pressure on Etruscans. As for economical and cultural relations, an influence was bilateral, with a center in northern parts of Italy - everything in distance from this center in any direction was more barbaric - including Latins and Oscans. And all Italian territories were under a high cultural influence of Magna Graeca, and to less extent economically interdependent with it. So Romans and other Latins were on a distant periphery of both of these civilization centers. More than Oscans - Samnites being more Etruscan- and lately Celticentric, and Lucans with Iapygians more Hellenicentric. Civilisation crossovers were the centers of trade, and hence the more developed areas (Etruscans, and Magna Graeca), and they were than conquered by stronger barbarians. Romans have from all these barbarians in start a bonus of covered back by a sea. Hence four mutually fighting Samnites tribes, while more military apt, were in time conquered by them, and not vice versa.

Classical historians like to study the more developed cultures, which let us more nice artifacts, and sometimes written memories, nevertheless in reality it was the interplay among all players, which created a base for our modern civilization - all of them have given something from their cultures, and maybe more importantly, their interaction developed something more complex, not additively, but rather in form some potentiation, and acceleration.

I like to read about Celtic tribe of Boii (me born in Bohemia), which played a role in several of the dominant events not only in their Bohemia + Moravia, and later Pannonia, but also in penetration to northern Italy, highly probably including the sacking of Rome. Nevertheless, all is secondary evidence, often only archelogical. Part of them settled in northern Italy with center in today’s Bologna, and assimilated to large extent with previous Etruscan people of this area. A civilization exchange than continued later by their return back to the central Europe several generations later under pressure of expanding Romans, where they were later conquered and assimilated with gemanic tribe of Markomans, which than several centuries attacked northern bounderies of Roman imperium.

So, it is rather complicated to define exactly in chronological and geographical boundaries their influence on the development of these areas (including northern Italy), but is as important to similar extent as e.g. Hellenic poleis for Southern parts of Italy. However, scholars neglect their achievements to large extent, maybe due to the lack of remnants of their material culture.